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Scene of the Crime | 
 enlarge | Artist: Bettye Lavette
Label: Anti
Category: Music
List Price: $17.98
Buy New: $11.78
You Save: $6.20 (34%)
New (38) Used (9) Collectible (1) from $11.24
Avg. Customer Rating:  19 reviews
Sales Rank: 10963
Media: Audio CD
Discs: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.2
Dimensions (in): 5.6 x 4.9 x 0.4
MPN: 86873
UPC: 045778687329
EAN: 0045778687329
Release Date: September 25, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Tracks:
| • | Take Me Like I Am (Still Want To Be Your Baby) | | • | Choices | | • | Jealousy | | • | You Don't Know Me At All | | • | Somebody Pick Up My Pieces | | • | They Call It Love | | • | Last Time | | • | Talking Old Soldiers | | • | Before The Money Came (Battle Of Baeetye LaVette) | | • | I Guess We Shouldn't Talk About That Now |
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
"I've got my mem-mor-eehees," sings Bettye LaVette at the chilling finale of her version of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's obscure "Talking Old Soldiers," holding the last syllable as it fades into a hum while Spooner Oldham's ghostly piano underpins the pain. The singer's whiskey-stained voice infuses those words with a fierce mix of pride, hurt, resignation, sadness, strength, and humility--traits that make her one of the finest R&B singers of her generation. There are other riveting moments rivaling that from this deeply moving set that finds her recording once again at Muscle Shoals' FAME Studios, the same place she created an album in 1972 that Atlantic inexplicably never released. Accompanied by Oldham and the swampy, tightly wound Drive-by Truckers, LaVette digs into material from John Hiatt, Willie Nelson, Frankie Miller, Eddie Hinton, and Don Henley, among others, finding the hidden soul in songs as she rips them apart from the inside out. It's a magnificent performance from a singer who shoots straight, especially on her autobiographical "Before the Money Came (The Battle of Bettye LaVette)," this disc's sole original. The Truckers dial down their raunchy Southern rock, concentrating instead on rugged R&B and creating a greasy collaboration that's as inspired as it is unlikely. Lavette grinds out the intensity, alternating between ballads and roots rockers on a set that never lets up for 40 passionate minutes. Soul music just doesn't get any more fiery, as Bettye Lavette creates indelible images of loves and lives with the voice of one who has walked the talk. --Hal Horowitz More from Bettye LaVette 
I've Got My Own Hell to Raise | 
A Woman Like Me | 
Take Another Little Piece of My Heart | 
Let Me Down Easy | 
The Very Best of the Motorcity Recordings | 
Do Your Duty |
Product Description
Her 2005 acclaimed release, "I've Got My Own Hell To Raise", brought well-deserved recognition to this R&B maverick who's been recording since the early 60s. Now comes the almost autobiographical "Scene Of The Crime". To make music this raw and direct, Bettye enlisted "dirty south" rockers The Drive By Truckers as her backup band. With swampy guitars, slippery Wurlitzer piano, and a driving backline, this record conjures up the spirit of great loose 70s bands like the Faces while offering Bettye an urgent, vital setting for her razor-sharp vocals. Recorded in Muscle Shoals, AL, where she recorded "Child Of The Seventies" in 1972 - a masterpiece that was shelved then released 30 years later. Returning to Muscle Shoals was like returning to the scene of a crime; thus the album title, and the intense, personal music within.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 14 more reviews...
Bettye LaVette Hits Another Home Run January 3, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bettye LaVette is like a vintage bottle of Bordeaux; she gets better with age. Scene of the Crime picks up where she left us with I've Got My Own Hell to Raise. I'm a relatively new fan having discovered Bettye about three years ago. I've seen her about a half dozen times during these past few years, and always walk away breathless. During this period of time, I've acquired four or five of her older records. I enjoy all of them, but I've got to say, I like the deeper, smokier voice that I hear on the newer ones. In addition to the changes in her range, she's developed the distinguishing characteristic of all the great vocalists I've seen/heard over the past thirty plus years (Sarah Vaughn for example), the ability to make someone else's song their own. She owns the material on this record. This record also has the swampy undertones of the great work that came out of Muscle Shoals in the late Sixties, early Seventies. All in all, it's another long ball from one of the greats.
Bettye and the Drive by Truckers together -- SMOKING HOT December 31, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
What a tremendous combination this is! Smoking, explosively honest southern soul from Bettye, with the Drive By Truckers providing the rock hard R&B grooves. This lady rocks the house! If Tina Turner sang with the Black Crowes, it MIGHT come out this good. Five stars and looking forward to more. Just dig the song samples for a tantalizing taste -- there are no duds on this disk.
Wow! January 12, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is my first exposure to Bettye LaVette after hearing a track from this CD on The Current. This is an amazing CD that could only have come from the gut of a life well-lived. Everyone should own a copy...
You Will Need Tissues... February 7, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
You've got to believe me, this CD will knock your socks off. It plays like an Elmore Leonard book reads. The songs are like chapters in this remarkable lady's over-looked struggle to find her own soul. And man, she does. And she throws it into your head with no shame.
Bettye LaVette: "Talking Old Soldiers" -- A Masterpiece! September 28, 2007
22 out of 32 found this review helpful
Without a doubt, Bettye LaVette is among the very best singers performing today. Much has been written about her astonishing "comeback," which, when compared to others who had big records years ago, came back onto the scene with a hit and then vanished again, there is no "comparison." LaVette is now where she should always have been -- with her peers, the greatest of singers. "When The Money Came" tells it all. I can't get enough of that one.
This new CD really grows on you. That's the case with every album I purchase because usually, I get stuck on one or two tunes that I can't leave alone. On SCENE OF THE CRIME, I became mesmerized by "Talking Old Soldiers," which I listened to 12 times straight before I could pull myself off the floor. Another recent LaVette recording did the same thing to me, her version of Bruce Springsteen's "Streets of Philadelphia," which one critic noted, "doesn't belong to Bruce any longer." Well, "Soldiers" is now Bettye LaVette's.
It's been said, "don't let Aretha Franklin get near one of your songs," well, the same can be said of Miss LaVette. Not only have Bettye's records catapulted her towards the heavens, her electrifying stage performances have "time-traveled" people back in time -- a period when singers didn't need 20 dancers prancing behind them, pyrotechnics and other special effects. LaVette is from the school of "hit the stage, grab the mic and sing your butt off."
With the Grammys being handed out to "artists" of questionable talent and abilities, who just happen to sell a lot of records, wouldn't it be refreshing to see some REAL ARTISTS win for genuine QUALITY work?
Note: Bettye just picked up a Grammy nomination for this album for Best Contemporary Blues Album of 2007.
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